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om and grow.
I've never understood struggle as anything other than a way to end harshness.
I took this path because I believe that it will lead us all to this permanent sweetness.
I'm fighting for this general, growing, inexhaustible goodness.
Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet (I Confess I Have Lived, 1974)
T
his Manifesto of the Conferences for Eco-Socialism falls in line with the
international Eco-Socialism Manifesto published in 2002 and the 2009 Eco-
Socialist Declaration of Belem, to pave the way for a new political project.
It was subjected to a wide debate within the Conferences for Eco-Socialism organized
by the Parti de Gauche on 1 December 2012. Since then, 133 core amendments, from
over thirty authors of diverse backgrounds, have been received and processed.
This Manifesto for Eco-Socialism will be discussed throughout the year and will lead
to new debates on the occasion of the second round of Conferences on Eco-Socialism to
be held in December 2013 within the framework of the Committee of Conferences
composed of the following persons: Mathieu Agostini, Paul Aris, Guillaume Etievant,
Laurent Garrouste, Susan George, Janette Habel, Damien Joliton, Matthieu le Quang,
Jacques Lerichomme, Michael Lwy, Laurent Maffeis, Corinne Morel Darleux, Arno
Munster, Danile Obono, Anita Rozenholc. . . .
All information concerning the permanent Conferences on Eco-Socialism can be found at ecosocialisme.com
2. A paradigm of general interest. In reality, human beings are an integral part of the ecosystem
in which they live, even before they have started thinking about it. The two cannot be separated. There
is only one global ecosystem compatible with human life. Therefore, we are all alike in our dependence
on the ecosystem. This truth applies to everyone, despite all our differences. There is thus a human
interest which is linked to that of all the other species: the protection of the ecosystem that makes
human life possible. How can we identify it other than by free collective deliberation? And how can it be
free if some dominate others, if revealed truths are imposed first? The environmentalist paradigm calls
for democracy, social equality, secularism and feminism. These are the essential conditions for public
debate to take place without oligarchic, dogmatic or patriarchal intrusion. Finally, in the discussion to
determine the general human interest, it is for each of us to say not what is good for him or herself, but
what is good for all. This establishes the universality of human rights, citizenship as a duty and the
Republic as a necessity. Such is the reasoned link that unites political ecology and the universal social
Republic. It is this global political theory that we call eco-socialism. It is about humanism and about a
socialist and concrete universalism.
3. A new political synthesis of the Left. Eco-socialism is a new political project unifying a
necessarily anti-capitalist ecology and a socialism freed from the logic of productivism (that is the false
need to produce and consume ever more). It allows the junction of the main currents of the Left into a
new political paradigm. We need this as an alternative project of society to capitalism. It draws a
perspective in the struggle for a society of emancipation and progress in which the destruction of the
environment and the exploitation of man by man will be wiped out. Our eco-socialist project takes into
account human needs and the limitations of our planet. It gives new thinking to the social utility of
production, the way in which we consume, our real needs, the purpose of what we produce and how we
produce it.
6. The social democratic impasse. We reject the social democratic doctrine according to which
any redistribution of wealth should depend on a prior boost of the GDP and on increased overall material
consumption. This is double nonsense. On the one hand, it maintains the power of financial capital and
assumes that the distribution of wealth is based on the benefits of growth. It does not tackle the
accumulation already acquired. But we know that wealth is there, and we dont need to wait to
redistribute it. What is at stake is the hoarding of this wealth by capitalistic plundering. On the other
hand, the social democratic doctrine is based on a model of infinite growth which is suicidal for human
civilization. GDP is a measurement which does not reflect good living. It is of course imperative that
every human being have access to basic commodities. Of course, stimulating activities of general interest
is also essential. However, boosting blind economic growth is not the answer to social emergencies. It is
even less bearable or desirable from the point of view of preserving the ecosystem, the natural resources
and the climate. Therefore we hope neither for the resumption of growth, nor for the beneficial effects
of austerity. We believe in neither.
9. Producing differently. The complete overhaul of our system of production is based on what we
call the 4 Rs: relocalisation of activity, ecological re-industrialization, restructuring of industrial
facilities and redistribution of work. Many needs remain unsatisfied: in a restructured industry, in
personal services, in agroecology, in farming aimed at food sovereignty and health for all, in research and
the green sectors working at reducing our dependence on non-renewable resources (such as green
building, energy efficiency, thermal renovation of housing, renewable energies). With rising
unemployment and the social crisis, the need to create or preserve jobs is too often put forward against
the imperative of environmental protection. It is absurd. Here is one of the economic and social costs of
liberal laissez-faire policies. On the contrary, relocation and ecological transition would allow to
preserve, transform or create many jobs, both local and sustainable, in all countries.
1 0. Setting up the green rule as our political compass. The green rule is our central
indicator of economic management. It replaces the golden rule of austerity policies and of structural
adjustment" imposed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and
the European Central Bank. It aims at ensuring our responsibility to humanity and its ecosystem by
phasing out the ecological debt. It combines the need to reduce the consumption of certain material
commodities and the necessary boosting of other activities, their resulting ecological footprint being
systematically taken into account. The damage already done by the emission of greenhouse gases and the
1 5. Fighting the cultural battle. The eco-socialist project leads its ideological struggle through
popular education. It wants to decolonise the imagination. It denounces the programming of a docile
individual-consumer, submitted to the opinions of so-called experts and to the requirements of
productivism which make us yearn for harmful and useless products, made at the other end of the world
in shameful working conditions and under inadaquate or nonexistent environmental legislation. It fights
the armed wing of productivism: advertising, with its attendant commercialisation of the body and
sexism, fashion and the media, relayed by credit institutions which condition us and subject us to a
permanent incitement to buy and waste. This ideological battle is also a battle of words. We reject the
politics of the oxymoron and neo-liberal newspeak: the "price of labour" which becomes a cost", social
security contributions re-classified as burdens, police forces renamed law enforcement, video
surveillance masquerading as video protection or nuclear energy disguised as clean and carbon-free.
1 6. Blasting away the obstacles of liberal treaties. On a global scale, we denounce the
agreements pushed forward by the World Trade Organization: free trade agreements and economic
partnership agreements which contribute to the depletion of natural resources, the exploitation of the
peoples of the South and social dumping in the developed countries. Because the European Union is the
first economic zone in the world, its evolution influences the whole planet. Its neo-liberal policies are
guarded by the existing treaties and austerity plans. Established under the leadership of economic and
financial lobbies, these all aim at the disappearance of public services, the extension of private
commercial interests and free trade. This is a source of waste due to mercantile competition and the
destruction of public services and common wealth, all for the benefit of private interests. Liberal and
austerity policies in Europe also make it impossible to control and steer production and exchanges
towards objectives of human progress. Under these conditions, we maintain that an eco-socialist policy in
Europe requires disobedience to neo-liberal Europe and its directives. To achieve this it is necessary to
build another balance of power between citizens, financial power and the anti-democratic institutions of
1 7. Carrying out an international and universal struggle. There is only one ecosystem
compatible with human life. Therefore we have to take this into account in all areas. Decisions taken on
one side on the planet have repercussions everywhere else. The eco-socialist project implies the
recognition of the responsibility of the countries of the North, the World Trade Organization, the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, towards the peoples of the South. The eco-socialist
project denounces organised competition rather than cooperation, productivism and its nefarious effects
on global climate, the plundering of natural resources, the race for arable land, as well as the austerity
measures imposed by the Troika. It also implies the recognition of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the creation of an international tribunal for crimes against the environment. Eco-socialism
requires us to contribute to the debate linking policies for development and social progress with
environmental protection. To this end, we support and take our inspiration from alternative policies or
events abroad: citizens revolutions, the Arab Spring, the refusal of the debt and of media monopolies in
Argentina, the Constituent Assembly in Iceland and Venezuela, the Yasuni ITT initiative to leave oil
underground in Ecuador, etc. The knowledge, experience and methods learned in those situations must
converge. The eco-socialist project must be supported by a global forum that will make it the goal of the
citizens revolution for our time.
1 8. A citizens revolution to lead the way for eco-socialism. Given the scale of our objective,
setting a new course away from the capitalist model of productivism cannot come from a simple electoral
changeover or from decisions dictated from above. It implies a radical overhaul of institutions, including
elections with proportional representation, gender parity and an end to one person holding many offices,
which will allow people to be adequately represented in their diversity. What is at stake is bringing the
oligarchy to heel and ensuring popular sovereignty through real democracy under all circumstances. This
requires that the eco-socialist parliamentary majorities combine their efforts with popular movements
involved in all domains of life in society. This reclaiming of political and civic initiatives by every man and
woman, in order to determine where the general interest lies, everywhere and on every issue, is what we
call the citizens' revolution. It is a revolution, because it intends to change the forms of ownership, the
institutional system and the hierarchy of legal, social and environmental standards which organize both
society and the economy. And it is a citizens revolution, because it intends to empower every person,
not in the interest of a particular social category but for the good of all humans, and because it provides
institutional forms for itself and submits to universal suffrage within the framework of political pluralism.
We refuse to accept that despair and anger turn into hatred. We want neither an enlightened avant-
garde, nor a green dictatorship, nor ethnocentric insularity; we support the democratic path of the
citizens revolution. People are not the problem, they are the solution. The worst damage that could be
wrought by the current crisis would be that humanity proved unable to open itself up to a new future.
Eco-socialism can be that new future. Let it blossom!